


lost the line between sky and sea

by silverhedges



Series: ging character studies [2]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Childbirth, Domestic, Gen, Kid Fic, Non-Chronological, Rape Recovery, Teenage Parents, Trans Ging Freecs, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 12:52:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17581214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverhedges/pseuds/silverhedges
Summary: For two and a half years, Ging tries to be someone else.





	lost the line between sky and sea

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "The Wind" by the Fray.
> 
> Dedicated to the Ging GC. Follow me on twitter @silversgone for more Ging content.
> 
> Also - you don't have to read this fic if you don't want to! I don't want to hurt anyone so please respect the trigger warnings.

v.

Ging plans out his new life just like how he’s seen normal people in the movies live.

A thriving port-town situated close to the sea. A three-bedroom house paid for with cash, within walking distance of the sea and yet on the public transport grid. A good school within bussing distance. Corner shop and greengrocer and café. Might as well buy white pickets while he’s at it for how perfect the rest of his life is going to be.

It doesn’t feel like that as Gon is sobbing and screeching as Ging brings him home.

Ging sings to him to calm him down. His voice echoes in the empty house. He’s there and so is Gon and it is unimaginably hard to have to do this alone.

A new doctor visits three times a week for the first month of Gon’s life. Ging grows used to this. He has a pram and a baby basket. He sterilises the bottles and heats up the milk and doesn’t cry over being woken up three times in one night. He sleeps in the bed with Gon in his cot near him.

Every day he wakes up feeling number.

 

viii.

He signs Gon up for the under-a-year baby swimming class. At the local swimming pool, he’s there in trunks, carefully holding his baby boy in a floating device. Gon kicks his legs and squeals happily. A fish to water. Ging wishes he had more chest hair to hide the scars.

The rest of the parents attending the baby swimming class are all mothers and older than him by a decade. Ging is asked once or twice if he’s the uncle or cousin or sibling. He shakes his head no, until finally relenting and saying, “I’m the father?”

The women stare at him. “Where’s the mother?”

Why is that always the first question on everyone’s tongue? Ging grimaces and doesn’t answer. For some reason, the women start cooing and clucking and acting very sympathetic. Maybe he’s tricked everyone into believing that the mother is dead.

It would be a true enough statement. She never existed.

The women insist upon signing Ging up for the daytime play dates, “for the babies to socialise and the mums to get a break!” He can’t think of a good enough reason to say no, so he agrees.

Afterwards, he musses shampoo into Gon’s little tufts of black hair. Ging makes faces at him so that the baby laughs while he rinses his hair clean.

 

ii.

Ging has many flaws but being stupid isn’t one of them. So when the pregnancy test reveals a positive outcome, all he does is lean his head back against the cubicle door, all his worst suspicions confirmed. He misses periods frequently, out of a lifestyle of travel and hard labour. A missed period is nothing. But this bloating, these strange cramps, his inability to eat in the morning?

He skips town that day, leaving behind what he doesn’t need. He figures at first that he’s a month along, that it should be fine to just hunker down in a safe place and wait it out. Nine months is nothing in the span of an entire life. It’ll give him time to think. He can do remote work and not let anyone see his body.

134 missed calls from various members of the Greed Island team.

It’s fine. The majority of the work is already done. They can finish it without him.

Ging is fine on his own.

By the third month, he’s taken it all back. He isn’t alone. There is this parasite taking over his body, destroying him from the inside out. There is something growing inside of him, like he is just a container for this new lifeform that will consume him whole to live.

The doctor he’s booked in to see hates him instantly, whether it’s the fact that Ging is a man or the fact that Ging is an asshole. “Mr Freecss, you are gestating a child,” she enunciates to him as if he’s a child. “You cannot act as if you are alone.”

A list of what to eat and what not to eat. What exercises he should be doing. No alcohol, no smoking, no drugs. Certainly no dangerous activity. All the vitamin supplements to take. To track his weight and pain level. Drink more water. Take up yoga. Eat for two. Keep a food diary.

The restrictions are awful. It only worsens as the pregnancy continues. His body swells, something inside beginning to move. He takes down all the mirrors in his temporary apartment, hating the fat he gains, how curvy and soft his reflection is. This is a curse that he’s been struck with, for being so talented and successful and cold, this is the revenge against him.

Maybe that’s why he never considers an abortion.

The pregnancy is difficult. There are nights he can’t sleep, hands cupped around his aching stomach, thinking that he’s going to die, that this thing is going to rip out of him and kill him. This is the end. The baby kicks against his ribs, as if he’s desperate to be out here and be in the world. Ging doesn’t want the kid to be like him, with all his double-edged personality traits. He doesn’t want his baby to arrive with a stranger’s eyes.

The only upside is the later stages of the pregnancy. It turns out that swimming is an excellent activity for pregnant people: it relieves ankle swelling, eases the stomach pain, allows him to regain some sense that body is his. Ging takes it easy, floating and slow stokes, no diving or underwater somersaults like he knows that he’s capable of.

This is it, isn’t it? The world dragging him down.

 

xi.

Ging keeps one eye on Gon and another on the women that have surrounded him. He’s never had to deal with a situation like this. His skin feels too tight, like he’s only playing the part of a normal dad and he’s forgotten all his lines.

Gon is having a great time, crawling in the play area and laughing with the other babies. Whatever it is that babies do. As far as Ging can recall his youngest memories, he was always alone. It’s probably a good thing that Gon is making friends. Ging only knows how to make friends through video games. That doesn’t work with everyone. Maybe there’s a more universal way.

“I notice your son has little green highlights!” Maria beams, lipstick waxy. “Other than that, he takes exactly after you.”

“Yeah,” Ging says as a place-holder, scanning his head for whatever these women want to hear him say. “Guess he’ll be a looker when he grows up.”

The women titter. They’re all married, between 30 and 40, painted fake nails and wrist bangles in 2 carat gold. Their husbands work in Big Law or Big Business, come home just to fuck them for the purposes of reproducing and then leave them to raise the baby alone. They’re alone all day with a baby who can’t have an intelligent conversation with them.

Ging never stood a chance.

“Oh, just like his father?” Lia coos. She keeps on glancing at Ging’s bare arms.

Sophia lightly slaps Lia’s wrist. “Oh, leave the poor child alone.”

 

iii.

“Wow. Wow,” Dwun is wide-eyed, mouth open. “Ging, you look like _shit_.”

Ging glares. “Of course I look like shit,” he snaps back, drawing his numerous layers around him, trying to dampen down the instinct to cup his hands around his stomach. “I came here to this party, didn’t I?”

Elena is frowning, looking him up and down, as if trying to match the neat Ging she knows to this fat heap of rags with dark circles under his eyes. “No one was expecting you to come. We haven’t heard from you in months.”

“Ging’s enough of an asshole to just disappear,” Dwun shrugs, tipping the beer can towards Ging in a mock-salute. “You don’t look that great though man. Want a drink?”

Ging shakes his head.

They all stare at him.

“Is this actually Ging?” List whispers to Eeta. “Or did a clone replace him?”

The party itself is bad. His head hurts, the baby is restless within him and everyone is staring at him. Still, Ging does want to be here. He worked so hard on this game. It’s his real baby and he wants to be here to see it launched out into the world. He stays by the wall, glass of water in his hand, fending off anyone who tries to talk to him.

It’s nice to watch. The rich and famous, the ones who’ve already preordered, the Hunters he does and the ones who have only heard of him. Maybe it’s a mistake to come here, but if so, it’s a calculated one. The cons of missing this experience outweigh the pros of privacy.

During the night, Netero appears in front of him, exactly the same as ever, a whisky in hand. “Congratulations!”

Ging shrugs. “Nine other people helped me.”

“I don’t mean that,” Netero gives an unpleasant chuckle that makes the baby shift inside Ging. “I mean the child. Congratulations. You’re young for fatherhood, I didn’t expect it of you.”

His throat dries, hands clenching at his side to stop his hands cupping the baby hidden within him. Netero sees the glare on his face, because he laughs. “You can’t hide like that from me, Ging.”

 

xiii.

204 missed calls.

Ging turns off his phone.

 

iv.

Ging nearly dies during the childbirth.

He doesn’t remember it, having already opted for a cesarean when the labour cramps came. Waking up is the worst experience of his life. He is weak and dizzy from the blood loss, the meds only partially dulling the splitting pain, as if his abdomen has been ripped open. He drifts in and out of consciousness, the doctors and nurses taking care of him.

As soon as possible, the nurse brings him his baby.

A heavy little bundle of blue blankets in her arms. “Your son, Mr Freecss,” she says as she carefully places him in Ging’s weakened arms. “Try to touch him as much as possible, skin-to-skin contact is very important.”

For a moment, Ging looks down and wonders what this thing is: this small fragile bald red being with squishy fat cheeks. Then the baby looks up at him with large, dark eyes. Knowing eyes, as if this little being sees Ging and acknowledges him for who he is.

It hits Ging then, like a lightning streak down the core of a trunk.

He’s created life. This little baby in his arms, of Ging’s own making, who is alive and real and barely beginning. A tiny little person who has their own thoughts and feelings, who will grow up to make their own mark on the world, for better or for worse. Whose responsibility is it to ensure that this fragile baby survives long enough to learn how to live on their own? Ging’s.

He’s breathing fast, panicked by the weight of the realisation of what he has done.

When he holds out one pinky finger, his baby’s tiny fingers grasp around it.

When the nurse returns, she asks, “Do you have a name?”

The baby is looking up at him with large hazel eyes, looking at Ging. He swallows heavily. Out of all the people in this world, this baby is dependent on him and him alone. They can make it, together. He can do this.

“Gon.”

 

vii.

Ging takes Gon back to Greed Island just once. He wants this child to see his other baby.

 

xvii.

Gon walks early. By the time he’s a few months past one years old, he’s walking around with his hand in Ging’s. Ging lets him run down the promenade to strengthen his legs, but he always keeps an eye on him. When he’s older, Ging will introduce him to the fishlife that live in the ocean and teach him how to dive and fish. It’s a shame there are no forests full of animals near here.

He could take Gon back to Whale Island for a visit, but Ging knows exactly what would happen. His mother would call him irresponsible and take the baby off of him. Sue him for custody through the courts.

Ging looks down at Gon, his small hand warm against the roughness of Ging’s palm, looking off into the distance with a dummy in his mouth and denim dungarees stating ‘#1 hunter’. Mito was only two years older when Ging left her. How old would she be now? Eleven, twelve? Would she be proud of the choices he’s made? The ones he hasn’t?

The choices that were made for him?

Gon tugs on his hand, bringing him back to the present. He points with his free hand. “Puppy!”

Ging follows his gaze. “Yes, that is a very cute puppy indeed,” he says admirably, before, “What?”

“Puppy!” Gon insists.

Ging swings him up into his arms and kisses his baby on the cheek. “Yes, Gon,” he beams, “You really do know the meaning of life already. So wise for such a young age.”

“Puppy!” Gon frowns. Ging kisses his forehead and takes him to go see the puppy.

 

vi.

When Gon is three months and Ging has somewhat been cured of the new-parent need to watch their baby at all times lest they disappear, he decides to start venturing out with him.

One sunny day, he pushes Gon in his pram down to the harbour. Gon either sleeps (mercifully) or stares around him and murmurs. Ging has him dressed in a little babysuit that says ‘future hunter’. An oil rig is being fixed in the shipyard, the air filled with clanging and the shouts of mechanics.

Staring out at the sparkling brilliant sea, the sky glittering with light so fine that Ging cannot tell where the sky ends and the sea begins, he quite literally runs into someone with Gon’s pram.

“Woah there!” the sailor says, leaping out of the way with his hands held high.

Ging curses at him, and checks Gon. The baby just smiles and burbles up at him, as if this is a very fun occurrence and he is very happy to be jolted about.

“The kid alright?” It’s the sailor asking. Ging looks up – he’s young, a late teenager, tanned and tattooed.

“Yeah. Didn’t see you there.”

The sailor waves a hand in the air. “It’s grand. Are you babysitting? What’s this little fella’s name?”

Ging shifts, tightening his hands on the pram handle. “Uh. Gon. I’m Ging. I’m his dad.” That’s the first time Ging has ever said that out loud. It doesn’t sound right on his tongue. Nineteen and a father?

The sailor stares at him for a moment, before laughing. “Wow! I didn’t expect that! You look so young – I thought you were my age? He’s cute. Actually, yeah, he looks like you. In the eyes. Very cute eyes. I mean, I’m not saying you have cute eyes as well…”

Ging shrugs. “I’m nineteen.”

“Same age as me! Wow.” The solider leans forward. “Uh, I’m Caleb, by the way. I’m here for a month, just sailed in two days ago. This is my hometown. Did you move here with your uh, wife? Girlfriend?”

Ging shakes his head. “I’m the only parent Gon has.”

“Oh no… I’m sorry to hear that, man.” Caleb hesitates for a moment, hands in his pockets, glancing away out at the sea before looking back at Ging. “If you need to just talk to another person, or grab coffee, or want tips on where to go or babysitting or anything… you could call me? Here, I’ll give you my number.”

 

i.

Dwun is staring at him. Ging sees him out of the corner of his eye: Dwun’s head tilted onto one side, looking at Ging as if he’s a line of code flashing SYNTAX ERROR. Ging ignores him. He has enough work to do. They’ve finished the production of Greed Island itself, but now the post-production process is giving him hell. Marketing, organising pre-orders, communicating with the publishing company. Boring.

“You’re looking pale, island boy,” Dwun starts as an insult, but there’s concern in the undertone. “What, do you need us to come by and personally ensure you eat three square meals a day?”

“I won’t hear that from the guy who only eats ready meals and takeaways.”

Dwun scoffs. “I choose this life! You don’t think about it at all.”

List, passing by, says in a kinder fashion: “You do look a bit ill, Ging. Not like you at all to be sick… are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine!” Ging grumbles, pushing his long hair out of his eyes. “Ugh, just leave me alone. Let’s get the fucking game out the door and then we can worry about our health.”

There’s a pause. Ging turns his head just in time to see Dwun and List exchange a look with seeming significance. “Ging,” Dwun’s voice full of suffering, “this is why I hate you.”

 

vix.

“I’m gonna win, I’m gonna win, I’m GONNA WIN, I’M GONNA WIN!”

“Aha!”

“Noooooooooooooo!”

They break out laughing, their voices loud in the living room. Caleb mock-holds his head in his heads, groaning in compliant. Ging is still grinning at the TV screen, displaying Mario waving at the crowd, first place trophy in his plumber-gloved hands. Gon, thankfully, is asleep in bed, his nose kissed and little black-and-green tufts of hair brushed out.

“So this is what you do?” Caleb’s hands around his face make his cheeks look soft. “Just make video games for a living: make them, hack them, test them?”

“Pretty much,” Ging says, and doesn’t think about all the academic reports about ruins that he reads to Gon at bed-time to make the baby fall asleep.

 

xii.

Every time he goes to the daytime play class and to the baby swimming classes, he is flooded with questions. Constant constant questions.

“Have you met anyone new?”

“Have you vaccinated Gon yet?”

“There’s a few schools to choose from around here – have you chosen which one to send Gon to yet?”

“How old were you, when you know, his mother became……… oh, _my_.”

“I wonder if you’re very experienced? Or was it just a first-time fluke?”

“Was she your first girlfriend?”

“When was your first kiss?”

“When is Gon’s birthday? A party is absolutely in order!”

“How did your family react?”

“You know, many families around here arrange marriages for their children pretty young…”

“Perhaps we should take you on a shopping trip? Yes. We must. You need our help.”

“You do realise that… well, becoming a mother is the ultimate function of a female’s life, isn’t it? There is no higher calling. Once your child is born, give up on everything else. It’s different for fathers, but since your wife is…. well. A mother is a mother and nothing else.”

Ging grits his teeth and rattles off the answers they expect of him. If it’s a lie, then they don’t need to know that. If this is all a lie, this whole pretence of a normal life, then who is really being hurt by the lies here? Who is benefiting? He’s been told that the more a lie is repeated, the more it becomes truth to the person who speaks it, but Ging wakes up every day wanting to rip himself out of his skin.

 

_zero._

He is eighteen and unkissed.

He is eighteen and a multi-millionaire and a nen genius. He’s rebuilt ruins that history had left behind in the dust and shadows and brought it back into the living world, to once again hear the laughter of curious tourists echoing down the marble chambers. He’s pioneered the frontier of video games, pushing the medium beyond what anyone else could do. He is a Hunter, always chasing and searching and wanting.

The air is cold against the exposed skin of his stomach. There is a line of salvia where the man is licking down his neck. There is a feverishly-hot creature on top of him, heavy limbs weighing him down, pouring lava into his bleeding guts. There is something inside him, invading him, as if being so physically close means that this creature has won this contest. Ging didn’t know this was a contest, or what the rules were, until it was already over, and he had already lost it all.

He stares at the sky. A mantra in his mind, about what he wants: finish Greed Island, go fight Netero again, look for more information about D Hunter, the gold vein in the Kongo. The goals, the to-do list circle around and around in his mind. Yes. Ging knows what he wants.

What does he not want?

Not this. Not whatever this cruel ritual is, of being held down and invaded and shown a lesson.

The creature above him is groaning, muffling a moan into Ging’s neck. The very core of him has been watered down, squelched into the mud, taken away. There is sweat on his skin that is not his. Flat on his back, legs spread. Is this what it means to be defeated?

 

x.

Caleb touches his thigh and Ging flinches.

 

xvi.

Okay, so he fucks Caleb.

Okay, so he sleeps with half of the women in his social group.

Can he really be blamed for it? It turns out sex is an excellent way to keep people liking you when all the novelty and glamour and mysterioso has worn off.

It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t understand why everyone enjoys sex so much.

 

xv.

There are bad days.

Ging has never been a functional person, but all of this is so unimaginably hard. Looking after a fragile baby twenty-four-seven is enough on its own. Remembering to launder all their clothes? Dry them? Cook some food with fresh vegetables and fruit? Wash the plates? Hoover the house? Bring the baby to the correct classes? Read books to him? Play toys? Send the doctor update reports on how the baby is doing?

There’s no time left for Ging to be a separate person. No time left to work on video games or read historical reports. He thought he could do this, but the thought: _I have to do this for at least eighteen years, he’ll hate me for half of it, I’m wasting my youth away, I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t want this_ –

His mother and her strained smile, gently insisting to him that Ging has to do this, because this is what is expected of girls.

Ging doesn’t cry, but he’s crying now, cheeks tear-stained and stubble softer. He can’t do this. Slumped down, back against the kitchen cabinet, knees drawn up towards him. Why is he crying over a fucking birthday party for a one-year old who won’t even remember it? Why is he trying so hard? Why is he never fucking good enough at normal shit that everyone else can do like breathing?

His shoulders are shaking, vision blurring. He only notices the baby toddling over to him by the intimate sense of his nen.

“Uh-uh,” Gon murmurs, his little face concerned, hands brushing at Ging’s face. Then he wraps his tiny arms around Ging’s neck and clings onto him, babbling sad noises into Ging’s neck.

Ging holds him back, rocking his baby very gently.

He doesn’t cry with Gon safe in his arms.

 

xviii.

_Beep._

“This person is not available to answer their phone. Please leave a message after the tone.”

“You know what you are, Ging? You’re a fucking waste of space. You walk in here, thinking you’re the shit, thinking that you are so fucking great. You are a toxic narcissistic _abusive_ asshole and I hope you rot in hell. I’ve talked to everyone and they all find you so annoying. You only ever think about yourself and what’s best for you. I don’t want to speak to you ever again. I would just like to remind that you that I’m not the bad guy here. You are. You’re under no obligation to ever come near me again. I pity the next poor fool you’re going to fuck over.”

 

xiv.

Gon takes his first steps on the beach.

His little legs are upright, unsteady on the shifting sand, but standing. His large eyes hazel and full of nothing but love, his arms reaching for Ging. The sun shines in his hair, reflecting off the forest-green.

“C’mere,” Ging has shifted back, holding out his hands, terrified of his baby falling. “Come to me.”

Gon toddles into his arms and falls over on him, both of them laughing.

Ging has never loved anyone like this, so preciously and so strong, like his heart is going to burst. This little child, waking up, becoming a person with real thoughts and feelings and emotions. This little boy who looks like Ging and loves the ocean and pushes away his chicken-flavoured baby formula. This little baby who is going to change his world. His son. The only person who loves Ging whole-heartedly in the entire world and the only person Ging loves with that same emotion.

 

xix.

There comes a point when he knows.

The better word is accepts. He knew from the start, gut-instinct, that this choice was not right for him. This is not what he wants to do with his life. This is Ging trying his hardest to live the life that everyone expects him to and failing every time, because in his core he was not made to be that person. He’s an actor sounding out the lines he’s been given and breaking character with every show. Why is he submitting himself to this torture? Is it his selfish pride to insist he can do it when he can’t? Is it because everyone expects him to fail and he wants to prove them wrong?

If he is going to deny his true self like this just for the sake of expectations, he might as well lie to the world and tell them to call him a girl.

He’s lying in bed, the sunrise painting the room in dim gold and grey, that half-asleep state giving him the clarity and coldness he needed. Gon is sleeping next to him, his pudgy legs kicked out, dark black-green hair growing upward, his mouth parted between curvy cheeks.

What do you _not_ want, Ging?

There had been a time that Ging had believed that he wanted everything, that he was hungry for every single experience in the big bad world, that he wanted to do it all. Have his cake and eat it too. Is this what growing up means, to realise that he can’t? That our time here is limited and our choices become narrower as we age?

Ging doesn’t want to die with a single regret in his bones.

Ultimately, all of our choices are already made for us. We know what we want to do but we’re too scared to follow through, in case the consequences outweigh our desire.

Is he happy with that? With living safely and secure, his real unfulfilled desire rotting him inside out? Could he live like that? Could he die like that?

All the bones of his body say _No._

 

xx.

Gon sleeps on the ship to Whale Island, curled up in Ging’s arms, head buried in the crook of Ging’s neck. Ging doesn’t mind this weight in his arms. This is the last time he’ll ever get to hold him.

“I won’t say I’m sorry, because I’m not. I’ve been a selfish bastard from the day I was born and I’m gonna die that way, kiddo. If I was a better person, I would be able to take care of you. But I can’t take care of you. I’m irresponsible and reckless and I fuck everything up. I bet even if I did raise you, you’d end up hating me. So it’s okay to let you go and let someone better take you off me and ban me from ever seeing you again. It’s okay to never see you again. You’re way better off without me.”

Ging, standing in the prow, breathes in the salt air.

“Once a Hunter, always a Hunter. I can’t stop being the person that I am.”


End file.
